It was a case of tomato shrinkage.

I was trying to replicate a savory tart I'd seen in an Italian cookbook. I've drooled over it for a few years. It's a simple dish: just a puff pastry shell filled to overflowing with halved cherry tomatoes and herbs, then baked.

Looked delicious. Looked gorgeous. So I made it. Was delicious. Wasn't gorgeous. Actually, was pretty ugly.

It was the cherry tomatoes that caused the problem. In the book's photo, they were impressive, packed tightly into the pastry shell and lightly caramelized. But I couldn't get mine to look like that.

Regardless of how tightly I packed the tomatoes into my tart shell, they always shrank so much during cooking, leaving huge, unattractive gaps between them.

I concluded there were only a few ways the food stylist and photographer who did the recipe for this book could have produced this result, and none of them involved actually following the recipe.

So I started from scratch. First, I ditched the puff pastry for a standard pie shell dough pressed into a tart pan with a removable bottom. While still light in the mouth, this shell had the strength I needed.

Next, I wanted to up the savory notes. I considered cheese but decided I wanted the master recipe to stand on its own.

I settled on olive tapenade, a thick and incredibly rich spread made from olives, olive oil and thyme. I spread a thin coat of this over the bottom of the tart shell.

For seasonings, I resisted tradition and skipped the basil. Much as I love it, basil can have minty undertones and I wanted this dish to be utterly savory. Fresh basil also fares badly in the oven. If you have a hankering for it, scatter fresh leaves over the finished tart.

But what to do about the tomatoes? I loved the look of the cherry tomatoes but could not get them to work. I decided regular tomatoes, thinly sliced and arranged in an overlapping pattern, was the next best thing.

And because I was trying to up the aesthetics, I alternated green and red tomato slices. In addition to being attractive, the green tomatoes also add a firm texture and tart flavor. If you have access to them, some orange or purple heirloom varieties would be nice, too.

(Editor's note: You can sometimes find these at the Farm Bureau's farmers' markets around O'ahu.)

Problem solved. Tomato shrinkage no longer was an issue and I was left with a delicious and beautiful tart.

Since this recipe practically begs for variations, consider these: Cheese is an obvious choice; a few parmesan shavings over the top would be plenty, as would lightly buttered bread crumbs; thinly sliced artichoke hearts between tomato layers would be tasty, too.

TOMATO TART